Review and Comment: The Sea Beckons
The shore below the Brooklyn Bridge was once a scene of shipping. Watching the freighters arrive and depart, the longshoremen going about their work, was as much an attraction of the Heights Promenade for over a quarter century as was the greater view of harbor and skyline. Long before the Promenade, ships had been coming to dock below Brooklyn Heights.
A chance remark last week by the artist and photographer Ann Walker Gaffney put a bug in my head. She was talking about the desperate effort to save the pre-World War II tanker Mary A. Whalen — the subject of an urgent public session at Long Island College Hospital this past Monday. The vessel will have to give up its berth at the Red Hook Container Terminal by April 30, and a hope that it could be moved to nearby Atlantic Basin has been deferred by the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
So what to do? The thought suggested by the conversation with Ms. Gaffney was that Brooklyn Bridge Park might prove the right home for the ship. After all, the pier platforms are still there, and having the Mary A. Whalen docked at Pier 2 or 3, or the north side of Pier 5, would provide a link to that waterfront’s historic past.